Gleaning of Scrolls from the Judean Desert

This chapter deals both with fragments found in the eleven Qumran caves and documents from the time of the Bar Kokhba Revolt. It first surveys the history of archaeological research during the Golden Age of the discoveries in the Judean Desert. The chapter then considers scroll fragments from the Qumran caves that, although found before 1956, came to public notice only in recent years. It looks at the inscriptions found at Khirbet Qumran, because those found by de Vaux and additional ostraca were found at Qumran in the last few years. Finally the chapter looks at the scroll fragments, economic documents, and inscriptions from the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt, some of which were kept for many years by collectors and antiquities dealers and were published only recently, while others were discovered in the Judean Desert caves since 1984.